Contemporary commercial aircraft may each include a number of computing systems. These computing systems may be dedicated to different, designated functions. Moreover, different aircraft models, or even different implementations of the same aircraft models, each may include a plurality of different computing systems.
For example, multiple computers are used on the flight deck to support and automate flight systems. Additional computers are used for maintenance purposes, such as by monitoring on-board systems and relaying telemetry to ground stations. In addition, computers are used on commercial airlines to control passenger services, such as by providing on-board entertainment. More recently, networking services such as Connexion by Boeing® provides an air-to-ground communications link that allows passengers to access the Internet while in flight. In any case, there is little commonality between these different systems.
Conventionally, these computer systems tend to be separate, standalone systems. For safety and security reasons, it may be desirable for at least some of the flight deck systems, including those that control flight operations, to be isolated from other systems. However, for systems in the passenger cabin and other systems that are not essential for flight, maintaining separate systems may be wasteful. Furthermore, as needs change, scaling these systems may be difficult because each relies on dedicated resources. Similarly, because of the separateness of the systems, when one system fails, other systems cannot be used to provide backup for the other systems.
A worthy goal in implementing computing systems for commercial aircraft is to establish a “reference architecture.” A reference architecture describes a design indicating parts included in the design without restricting the details such as, for example, with what airplanes the design is used, the quantity, capacity, size, performance, installation location, or cost of the components it is installed on, size, quantity, cost, performance, location on the airplane. An appropriate reference architecture specifies high level expectations and generalized descriptions of the components used to implement that design.
Previous attempts to establish a reference architecture for aircraft are heavily dependent upon particular hardware implementations and have not met with wide acceptance. These architectures have been rejected as not being suitable for particular aircraft designs. They have not been considered practical in the marketplace for aircraft that do not have sufficient needs that would justify the particular hardware-centric architectures currently available, or have not been judged as not providing sufficient cross-platform commonality.